How Men Like Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh And Brock Turner Are Made
As an Ivy alumnus, I witnessed the process in action.
*The following article contains discussion of sexual assault—see end for resources
I've mentioned before that I attended an Ivy League institution—and opted for the nervous breakdown over the degree route.
As of 1970 the school I attended was still males only and mostly White. The first Indigenous American men were admitted in 1970, the first women of any race in 1972.
This particular Ivy had been established in the mid-1700s to “provide an education to the savages.” The school was gifted land and funds by the king to do so, then promptly established itself as an elite institution for young White men of means.
As part of their bicentennial celebrations, they discovered *insert shocked face* they forgot to knowingly educate a single Indigenous person. Instead they made “Indians” the unofficial athletics mascot.
Being the end of the 1960s, American academia was deep in its guilt phase.
So they outlawed the use of the Indigenous mascot, covered the murals of drunken savages in the dining commons—no, seriously—and recruited four Indigenous American men of high academic standing for the next fall trimester. By the time I matriculated in 1987, I was one of 24 Indigenous American freshmen.
Which brings me to how I saw men like Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh and Brock “Stanford Rapist” Turner being made. Or at least polished up before finally being unleashed on the world.
A Lifetime Of Privilege
For many people who didn't have a front row seat to this level of young White male Ivy League privilege like I did, the 2016 sexual assault trial of Stanford swim team member Brock Allen Turner was their first view of it in action.
After he was arrested in January 2015, glossy professional photos of a smiling Turner in a suit and tie were used by the media.
His mugshots were kept under wraps by Stanford University police and Santa Clara County authorities until three months after he was convicted in 2016.
People in and out of mainstream media noted the difference in treatment for a White sex offender versus a murdered Black teenager.
Many were also shocked by comments made by Turner's father excusing his son's behavior as a simple boyish mistake.
Dan Turner wrote:
“His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-plus years of life.”
The judge—Aaron Persky—also focused on Turner's bright future—such a great swimmer—being derailed and how much Turner suffered as a result of his indiscretion.
The then 19-year-old Turner's “oopsy” was dragging an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and raping her until a couple of graduate students caught him in the act and held him until the Stanford Campus Police arrived.
Turner withdrew from Stanford rather than face disciplinary action. As far as his father and many men like him were concerned, that should have been the end of it. After all, that's how it always worked.
Turner was convicted and sentenced to six months in county jail, but served only three. Judge Persky was recalled by California voters and ultimately suffered more than Turner.
Rape Culture
Nothing about Brock Turner’s crime, or the sexual assault allegations made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former Republican President Donald Trump surprised me.
Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford's Senate testimony resonated deeply with me.
Her experience as a teenager was similar to what I saw at my Ivy League college in 1987. The culture of the all-boys prep school that spat Kavanaugh out in 1983 produced similar entitled, toxic, violent, hard-partying young men whom I'd encounter.
At my Ivy, rape was viewed as just another form of dating with its own guide to success. These methods were often perfected at the elite prep schools that churned out Ivy Leaguers.
To wit, a rich White boy asks out a financial aid student/person of lesser age or social standing—bonus points if they're a BIPOC—then gets them drunk or drugs them for easy compliance. They can't say “no” if they're unconscious.
If that doesn't work, he takes them somewhere isolated and uses threats or violence to rape them. Then he brags about it to his buddies and adds another notch to his belt.
How hard they partied and how many times they “scored” was central to their social status and acceptance by their peers. Immersed in this culture, they fail to see any wrongdoing on their part.
Kavanaugh's tantrums and tears and Turner’s refusal to acknowledge his actions were rape are so typical I expected them.
My college published handy books with freshman photos, bios and dorm assignments and specialty ones for certain demographics, like one featuring just the 24 Indigenous American students.
The legacy laden fraternities referred to these books as “The Menu” and cracked jokes about “who wants some *insert ethnic group here* tonight?” as they picked someone off the menu.
I'm no great beauty, but I suddenly found myself popular for an unknown to me at the time reason.
Unfortunately for the men who targeted me, I don't drink alcohol and am extremely vigilant about my food and beverages. So that left taking me somewhere isolated.
An actual conscious victim is risky, so it's best to tell them you're going to rape them and there's nothing they can do about it. Seriously. These college dudes flat out told me we'd be having sex and it would go better if I cooperated.
Also unfortunate for them, my as yet undiagnosed autism meant I disliked being touched and reacted rather violently to it. So I informed them of all the flaws in the design of the human body and which portions of their anatomy were easily torn, gouged or ripped off and my intention to do it.
Or as I told one particularly large lacrosse player, “You're bigger than me and can probably even kill me. But I'm going to maim you in horrific ways, so you better decide if it's worth it.”
The small guy with the Lamborghini Countach told me we were getting out and having sex by the side of the road—which made sense since it was the least comfortable car I've ever been in and definitely lacked the room needed to rape a conscious victim. I told him they'd find his mutilated body in the ditch by the road if he didn't drive me back to campus immediately.
I remained untouched and after five guys tried this same routine within my first 10 days on campus, I developed a reputation as dangerous and psycho. I was crossed off the menu.
I reported all of them to campus police, but was warned they had a better case against me since I threatened them with violence when they “hadn't done anything yet.”
Most of the women—possibly all—and some of the men in our book of Indigenous students weren't violently autistic, so they weren't as fortunate as I was. I was a distinct minority among my BIPOC and financially disadvantaged peers who were fodder for the trust fund kids, nouveau riche and campus legacies with their family names on buildings.
The assaults were so commonplace and expected that the five dimwits who targeted me were actually more offended than angered that I went off script. My experience was so unusual my peers in the Indigenous community acted as though I'd performed a miracle by even saying no.
This is the perspective of people like Turner, Kavanaugh and Trump.
It's expected that people of lower social status or in compromised positions are theirs for the taking. They don't see a crime and are offended at the very suggestion that it wasn’t their right to take what was offered.
If a person accepts an invitation or becomes intoxicated, they've not just consented—they're begging for it.
The Education Gap
When I attended my Ivy in 1987, students were still reeling from being stripped of their mascot, not to mention the admission of poor people, minorities and women. The last of which happened in 1972 when we were toddlers.
The horror!
This was an Ivy, so if your parents’ adjusted gross income was under $200,000, you received some form of financial aid. But as an Ivy, there were strict academic standards—for some students.
There was a segment of the campus population and a majority of the alumni who believed only people who could afford to pay tuition deserved to attend an Ivy and not all the “affirmative action” students. Because surely we—women and BIPOC—were stealing a space from a more qualified White man.
Alumni weekends were particularly dangerous for Indigenous students since we also stole their mascot. Never mind that the White administration and trustees made the decision in 1969.
I spent more than one alumni weekend at the ER with a member of our community.
In response to the tension and violence directed at BIPOC and women, the campus newspaper published the academic stats for the incoming class. These were available in the trustees report and can now be found easily online, but the internet was in its infancy in 1987.
Back then, this was an exposé.
Unsurprisingly, freshman of Asian descent had the highest average SAT/ACT scores and high school GPAs of any racial/ethnic group followed by, in order: Black, Indigenous American, international/exchange students, Hispanic, White women then White men.
White men's average SAT score was almost below the school's minimum SAT score of 1150. In 1987, the SAT was a two part test of math and verbal skills with a maximum score of 1600 and a national average around 1000.
As someone stated after the Supreme Court's recent ruling on affirmative action, the real unqualified, unworthy recipients of special privileges have always been rich, White men and to a lesser extent their female counterparts.
It should come as little surprise that the newspaper's student editor was removed from the position in retaliation for embarrassing the school alumni.
Bying Bestest Edukashun Don't Wurk Good
One of the upperclassmen at my Ivy was from a very affluent family still well-known. Her family had been attending the school since the 1800s.
Those of us who knew her concluded with pretty solid evidence that she was functionally illiterate. She also had the personality of a cranky toddler.
Sound like someone else you know?
But how does a functionally illiterate person attend a prestigious Ivy League institution with such high academic standards?
The same way Donald Trump attended University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Money buys a lot, including high school diplomas from prestigious prep schools and college degrees.
In talking to her we easily found out:
she hadn't done any of her own school work since elementary school
rich families hire tutors that often do all of the homework for their students
rich kids gain an entourage early in life—hangers on looking for the benefits of their money and privilege
Her entourage—only with her to enjoy her access to a private jet and boatloads of party cash—continuously told her how amazing, smart, beautiful, funny, and positively perfect in every way she was.
These biased voices were all she'd heard in life—first from people paid to care for her and then from the kids who discovered the benefits of clinging to her around 3rd or 4th grade. To say her perception of self was warped was an understatement.
But she did own a mirror and not everyone was a fan of her puerile behavior. The lack of parental attention—they had an empire to run and high society functions to attend—and honest feedback from everyone not on her payroll, created one of the most insecure people I've ever interacted with.
Sound like anyone else you know?
When Raging Narcissists Are Unleashed
Turner and Kavanaugh shared the dude bro culture of privileged White boys, but not the constant propping up of a narcissistic trust fund baby like Donald Trump.
Excessive partying and rape culture are part of their reality from adolescence. They're entitled and indignant when anyone questions their toxic youthful indiscretions.
And a lot of men in power share their background.
School officials, fathers, lawyers, and judges often engaged in the same activities before settling into their eventual preordained role as a respected authority figure. So it's hard for them to condemn the rapist when their own sexual conquests weren't always consensual.
There are always so many excuses offered for their behavior by the people tasked with protecting their victims: boys will be boys, they were drunk/high, she was giving off mixed signals, oops—it was just a misunderstanding, what about his bright future?
But some of these boys never grow up and leave the youthful indiscretion phase behind. They belong to the rarified class of Donald Trump.
Coddled by paid acolytes all his life, never maturing beyond childhood tantrums and the narcissistic self-absorption normal for a toddler, Trump belonged to the class rich enough to never need to find outside employment or the public approval that would require him to alter his behavior.
Trump found himself in the class of adult abusers who get free passes because of their power. Men like his buddy Jeffrey Epstein and others like Prince Andrew, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby.
And like those men, accountability is met with indignation. How dare they be told no. How dare anyone question their behavior. Do we not know who they are‽‽
Yes, Donald, I know exactly who you are and why you're so dangerous.
We've already seen and felt the consequences of a Trump presidency and how it emboldened Christian nationalists and White supremacists.
Democracy only works if the people being governed participate in the process. Speak out against injustice to your elected officials.
And most importantly, make certain you're registered and you vote in November.
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In addition to writing for The Big Picture, Amelia writes Auntie Mavis’ Musings
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If you or someone you know experienced sexual assault, help is out there.
You can reach the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 1-800-656-4673, use their Live Chat tool: https://www.rainn.org/get-help, or visit the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
In Canada, help is available through the Ending Violence Association of Canada website.
International resources can be found through the Rape Crisis Network Europe website.
As a tall athletic blond I had to put many attackers into the hospital. Two of them were SDSU football players. The coach threatened ME with assault. I told him I was going to call the Brookings Register to let all the fathers know who send their daughters to college there that he, the football coach, thinks we women were suppose to be rape fodder for his players. By the time I got done with him, it was he who was afraid of me. My military father taught me how to put men into the hospital with one or two strikes. ALL females should be taught such techniques. I have saved many more girls and women from not only rape, but also attempted kidnapping. Too many men are outright animals, and I treat those monsters like the rabid dogs that they are.
Powerful, insightful on so many levels. In short, the best article I have read on the Big Picture.
Many of us saw through Kavanaugh's how dare you rant. But here Amelia gets at what's behind this privileged sentiment and reality we live in.